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HMS Churchill (S46)
1970 Churchill-class nuclear-powered fleet submarine of the Royal Navy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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HMS Churchill was the first of three Churchill-class[a] nuclear fleet submarines that served with the Royal Navy.
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Construction
In 1965, following a decision by the Labour government not to build a fifth Resolution class ballistic missile submarine, production of nuclear-powered fleet submarines, which had been postponed owing to the priority given to the Polaris programme, could be restarted.[1] Churchill, the Royal Navy's fourth nuclear-powered fleet submarine was ordered on 21 October 1965, and was laid down at Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Limited (VSEL)'s Barrow-in-Furness shipyard on 30 June 1967.[3] Following a collision between sister submarine Warspite and a Soviet Echo II-class submarine in the Barents Sea on 9 October 1968, the fin of Churchill, still under construction at Barrow, was used to replace Warspite's fin, which had been badly damaged in the collision.[5][6] Churchill was launched by Mary Soames, Winston Churchill's youngest daughter, on 20 December 1968,[7] and commissioned on 15 July 1970.[3]
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Propulsion
Churchill was chosen to trial the first full-size submarine pump jet propulsion. Trials of a high-speed unit were followed by further trials with a low-speed unit, and these were successful enough for the same propulsion to be fitted in the rest of the class.[8] Later British submarine classes also featured the pump jet, although first-of-class vessels Swiftsure and Trafalgar were fitted with propellers at build.
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